Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO THE BOSTON MARINE SOCIETY, MASSACHUSETTS. - The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Return to Title Page for The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE BOSTON MARINE SOCIETY, MASSACHUSETTS. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 9.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THE BOSTON MARINE SOCIETY, MASSACHUSETTS.

7 September, 1798.

Gentlemen,

I thank you for this respectful address. The existence of the independence of any nation cannot be more grossly attacked, the sovereign rights of a country cannot be more offensively violated, than by a refusal to receive ambassadors sent as ministers of explanation and concord; especially if such refusal is accompanied with public and notorious circumstances of deliberate indignity, insult, and contempt. Indiscriminate despoliations on our commerce, grounded on the contemptuous opinion that we are a divided, defenceless, and mercenary people, are not so egregious and aggravated a provocation offered to the face of a whole nation as the former. I rejoice that you indignantly feel that you dare to resent; and that you hope to vindicate the injured and insulted character of our common country. When friendship becomes insult, or is permitted only on terms dictated and imposed, it becomes an intolerable yoke, and it is time to shake it off. Better at once to become generous enemies, than maintain a delusive and precarious connection with such insidious friends.

Whatever pretexts the French people, or a French prince of the blood with his train, or a combination of families of the first quality with officers of the army, had, for their efforts for the annihilation of the monarchy, we certainly, far from being under any obligation, had no right or excuse to interfere for their assistance. If, by the collateral props of the monarchy, you mean the nobility and the clergy, what has followed the annihilation of them? All their revenues have been seized and appropriated by another prop of the old monarchy, the army; and the nation is become, as all other nations of Europe are becoming, if French principles and systems prevail, a congregation of soldiers and serfs. The French revolution has ever been incomprehensible to me. The substance of all that I can understand of it is, that one of the pillars of the ancient monarchy, that is the army, has fallen upon the other two, the nobility and the clergy, and broken them both down. The building has fallen, of course, and this pillar is now the whole edifice. The military serpent has swallowed that of Aaron, and all the rest. If the example should be followed through Europe, when the officers of the armies begin to quarrel with one another, five hundred years more of Barons’ wars may succeed. If the French, therefore, will become the enemies of all mankind, by forcing all nations to follow their example, in the subversion of all the political, religious, and social institutions, which time, experience, and freedom have sanctioned, they ought to be opposed by every country that has any pretensions to principle, spirit, or patriotism.

Floating batteries and wooden walls have been my favorite system of warfare and defence for this country for three and twenty years. I have had very little success in making proselytes. At the present moment, however, Americans in general, cultivators as well as merchants and mariners, begin to look to that source of security and protection; and your assistance will have great influence and effect in extending the opinion in theory, and in introducing and establishing the practice.

Your kind wishes for my life and health demand my most respectful and affectionate gratitude, and the return of my sincere prayers for the health and happiness of the Marine Society at Boston, as well as for the security and prosperity of the military and commercial marine of the United States, in which yours is included.

John Adams.